The Unpleasant and Necessary Truth
by Musicalromancegrl
Summary: Ann is the daughter of Ursula and Capitan Hook. She and Jay are married, so she's allowed to join him in Auradon. When they arrived, Ann and Jay discover that Ann is pregnant. This isn't the life Ann wanted for herself. So, when Chad starts bullying her friends in the croquet garden, Ann decides to teach the royals a few life lessons. TRIGGER WARNING: Abuse, death, teen pregnancy


TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of abuse, rape, murder, teen pregnancy, and forced engagement

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters (except Ann), nor do I own the script, which is quoted in the beginning of this scene

Background: All the children are 16 or older. Ann is the daughter of Ursula and Captain Hook. She's chosen to join Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay on their excursion off the Isle of the Lost. Jay and Ann are married, and they've recently been told that Ann is pregnant with their child. If she gives birth on the Isle, her child will be forced to stay there as an "inmate." But if she gives birth in Auradon, her child will be a candidate for adoption, and Ann will never see the baby again.

"They were raised by their _parents_ , Ben" Chad condescended. Feeling her blood begin to boil, Ann clenched her fists, trying to control her anger. _Stress isn't good for the baby_ ; that's what the doctor had said. Ann closed her eyes, breathing deeply, and tried to block out the tiresome brat. But he kept going.

"What do you think they teach their kids? Kindness? Fair play?"

"Of course they didn't teach us that stuff! We were raised by villains, what did you expect us to be, honor students?" The retort shot out of Ann's mouth automatically, shocking her as well as everyone else within earshot.

The garden went completely silent. All eyes were trained on her. Ann suspected that everyone, including King Beast and Queen Belle, was waiting to see what happened next. A quick glance at her surroundings confirmed it. _Well,_ she thought, _I have their attention, I may as well use it_. Ann took a shuddering deep breath, and began, her voice booming for all to hear.

"My father was sent to the island for being a murderer. My mother was sent there for using dark magic. I was born three days before my family's sentencing, and for some reason you found me guilty. I have to ask your majesties, were you dropped on your heads as children, or were you just born stupid? Because I don't know why any person in their right mind would let a killer and a dark witch raise a child completely unsupervised. Do you know what he did to me? Do you even care? He raped me and beat me _every_ _day_. Every year, on my birthday, he held a gun to my head and played Russian roulette. My mom didn't care- she even videotaped some of it."

Ann could see in the royals' faces that her story was shocking them. Most of them had only heard of Russian roulette, but never played it. And those who had were horrified at the prospect of forcing a child to engage in such a dangerous game. Ann wanted to stop there, and keep walking like nothing had happened. But she knew she needed to continue.

"The only reason I'm here today is because of Mr. Hamilton. I don't know why he got sent to the island, but I'm so glad he was. Every day until he died, he paid my parents to let him take me to his home. His home was the one place I felt safe. He fed me, taught me, and told me that I was important and that one day my pain would go away. When I was really little, he used to tell me stories about the "good island," this magical place run by King Beast and Queen Belle where everyone was nice, and nobody got hurt. I used to think that if I was good enough or old enough, King Beast and Queen Belle would come and save me." She scoffed. "Never meet your heroes, right?

"I had a little sister too. When he could afford it, Mr. Hamilton would pay for the both of us. She loved the "good island" stories. She even tried to sail there once, on a piece of driftwood. Didn't get more than a quarter of the way into the ocean, but she always said she'd try again one day." Ann laughed to herself, remembering her tiny sister trying to drag the large piece of wood across the beach.

The laugh died as suddenly as it came. "She never got that second chance. Food was pretty scarce in the beginning, and sometimes we'd go days without anything to eat." Ann's eyes darkened, and tears began to gather in her eyes "One day, she wouldn't stop crying… we were so hungry… dad told her to stop, but she didn't and he... he made me watch. _She was only three! She was three years old and those fuckers killed her!_ "

"Sad thing is, that's not the worst thing my parents did. The worst thing was when they tried to marry me off to warlord. I was fifteen! And I'm so lucky… so, so lucky that I have Jay. He gave my parents everything he owned so that I could marry him instead. And I didn't even ask him to do that. How many of you can say that your _precious babies_ would go up against warlord twice their age without being asked?"

Ann turned on Chad now, fire blazing in her soul. "You want to know what we learned over there? We learned how to fight. We learned how to _survive_."

"Oh please," someone whined. Ann turned on her heel, as Audrey stepped out from the crowd. "If your life was so bad, why didn't you just run away?"

"And go where? Unlike you, I don't have multiple castles. Before Jay, I had to choose between a hut with those monsters, or no hut at all."

"Then why didn't you fight back? I mean, you had all this time to make your dad stop hurting you, but you just-"

" _I killed him!_ " Ann roared. A collective gasp came up from the crowd. "On my wedding day, my dad tried to stop the ceremony. He had a knife, and he was going to kill Jay, so I shot him."

"And don't you dare," she cried, rounding on King Beast and Queen Belle, both of whom looked like they might be about to faint. "Don't you dare call me a monster. I did it to save Jay's life! If you want monsters, look in the damn mirror, because none of this-" she said, waving her hands out in a wide gesture, "-would've happened if you hadn't sent us to that fucking island. Not our parents, _us_. Maybe if I'd grown up here, I wouldn't be married and pregnant at 16! I could've been a normal girl," Ann said, her voice whistful and full of longing. "Who knows? If you'd tried to help us, my sister might be alive  & happy, instead of buried under some garbage heap." Jay stepped up behind his young, squeezing her shoulder in a sign of empathy. The simple gesture brought a wave of comfort coursing through Ann's body.

Mal had been watching it all from the sidelines. Her heart ached for Ann. Abuse was almost mundane on the Isle, but her friend had suffered the worst of it, and never let on. In that moment, Mal knew what she needed to do. She quickly strode forward to stand beside Jay and Ann, but not before whispering something to Evie, who began searching through her bag.

"Ann's right" Mal declared. "You're all just as responsible for the way we turned out as our parents are."

"What?" Chad roared. "We didn't do anything"

"Exactly!" Carlos chimed in. "You didn't do anything."

Evie ran up to the royal family's gazebo, a mossy green book in hand. "King beast, you wrote this book, right?" she asked, holding it up to the royal man. The King took a good look before nodding. "Great." Evie beamed, flipping to a page in the middle of the tome. "Well, it says right here that in order for evil to triumph, good men have to sit back and do nothing. Seems to me that that's exactly what you did. You sent us away, and didn't once look into our care or education. In fact, you didn't show any interest in our upbringing until we got to your school, right?" she asked, staring King Beast right in the eye. The King's face turned red, and he struggled to meet the girl's gaze.

"Well…" he said, sheepish. Evie sighed, her voice suddenly sounding exhausted.

"Then why are you so upset about the way we turned out?"


End file.
